Swatches & Review: Essence Bloom-A-Loom

Hello lovelies!

Today I'm showing you the fifth polish of Essence's Blossoms etc. collection (which I swatched and reviewed here). I originally didn't buy this one, but I recently saw it on sale for 99 cents so I picked it up. I like to have the entire collection.

Bloom-A-Loom is a pink-toned lavender pastel, almost cyclamen. It's way less blue than it looks here. If you look closely you can see a bit of the hidden shimmer on the nails. I think it's a very pretty colour, but definitely my least favourite of the collection. I'm glad I did get it in the end, though. I like it more than I thought I would.

I used two coats for these pictures, but this was almost a one coater. Application was smooth and easy. As with all the other polishes from this collection, the brush was rather long and bendable, but not uncomfortably so. I also had a bit of a hard time figuring out the right amount of polish to put on the brush, but application was still nice.

Have a lovely day, pretties! <3 This is another scheduled post, so I won't be able to respond to comments.

NOTD: Glitter Accent Nail

Hello lovelies!

Today's post should probably be titled FOTD (FAIL Of The Day). I saw the lovely Kirsten from Glitta Gloves do a glitter accent nail and I loved it so much I wanted to replicate the look. Except that I failed rather spectacularly.

I don't know whether the polishes, my unsteady hands, the lack of sleep or my headache are to blame. Possibly all.

For this I did all my nails with China Glaze Light As Air, which needed three coats and was pretty thick and draggy but at the same time runny and hard to control. Drying time was abysmal on this. Looking at my nails now, over six hours after application, they're a bumpy, dentable mess. Do any of you have that same problem with Light As Air?

Anyway, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Insta Dry and then used Essence Troy (a purple, blue and silver glitter) on my ring finger. I wanted some more colour in there so I applied a thin coat of Models Own Emerald City (emerald green glitter) which was too dense for my liking. So I applied another coat of Troy. Then I added topcoat to make it smooth.

I don't know. I think what makes me dislike this mani is that a) I loved Kirsten's mani sooo much and am super disappointed in myself that I couldn't make it work. And b) Light As Air was just such a frustrating mess. :/

Ugh. I really want to get rid of this mani, but I'm so tired and not in the mood to remove it. Blargh.

What do you guys think? Terrible fail or just not as good as I'd wanted it to be?

Product Focus: Catrice Nail Polish - Swatches & Review!

Hello lovelies! I apologize for my lack of posting. I'll definitely be posting more regularly now. :)

Today I have a Product Focus for you, featuring Catrice nail polishes. (I was considering showing you some of their eyeshadows as well, but decided against it. Might post a separate review about them at some point.)

I discovered Catrice a couple of months ago and have been really loving their nail polishes since. They're cheap, but really good quality. I like the brushes; they're fairly soft and wide, which can be problematic for me (hate the OPI brushes!), but these are just perfect. The formula on their polishes is great on most of them, almost all of them are flawless in 2 coats (though you could get away with one coat for some of them) and drying time is really quick. I did have trouble with one or two of the polishes, but I'll get to that later.

On to the pictures:

First up is Clay-ton, My Hero! which I bought mostly for the name (Adam Clayton, anyone?) and ended up liking quite a lot. It's a sort of greyed out toffee creme (you know, one of those murky colours that no one can ever really describe) with gold shimmer. Though looking at the pictures I took I almost want to say there's some copper and green-ish shimmer in there as well. Or maybe I've just been staring at my screen for too long. Anyway. Gorgeous colour, great formula, really like it!

I Sea You! is a gorgeous turquoise creme. Not that exciting, perhaps, but I love it. And the formula on this was outstanding! It's perfectly opaque and smooth in one coat. I still used two, but you don't necessarily have to.

Run Forest Run is a medium green creme. I really like this colour (can you tell I'm really into cremes?!), however this stains horribly. I only wore this for a few minutes and my cuticles were still stained for days. Staining doesn't usually bother me, but this was just absolutely horrible. Still loving the colour, though.

Wonderland Green Card is warmer and also darker than Run Forest Run. It does stain a bit, but not enough to bother me. Then again, I always wear nail polish, so this might be a problem for someone who only wears it occasionally. A good base coat might help there. Also, my bottle had a defective brush. Nothing I couldn't fix, but it's still annoying.

Lavenderlicious is a cool-toned lavender creme. Not much to say here; lovely colour, lovely formula. (That gross staining around my nails? That would be Run Forest Run, ladies and gentlemen.)

These were the first colours I bought, I have since purchased some others that I'll be showing you in a different post. Like I said, I really love the formula on these and I think their colours are really nice. Will definitely continue to buy them.